The Thiel Foundation pledges up to $1,000,000 to The Seasteading Institute!

We’re excited to announce that the Thiel Foundation has renewed their financial support of The Seasteading Institute for 2011, pledging up to one million dollars in additional funding!

Based on the success of last year’s $250,000 matching grant program, the Thiel Foundation will be matching the first $500,000 of donations from the seasteading community in 2011. Additionally, The Thiel Foundation is pledging $500,000 in direct grants to The Seasteading Institute, contingent upon performance, during 2011. So if the seasteading community contributes $500,000 or more, the Thiel Foundation will contribute a total of $1,000,000 to The Seasteading Institute.

Thanks to the generous support of the Thiel Foundation and the rest of our donors, 2011 will be another high water mark for the seasteading movement, moving us closer to a future where seastead societies foster experimentation and profound innovation in the world’s political systems. By the end of 2011, The Seasteading Institute will have published research enabling prospective seasteaders to navigate the key engineering and legal challenges blocking their way. We will also substantially grow the seasteading movement, generating more press coverage, inspiring future seastead entrepreneurs, and launching a local chapter program.

You can help the seasteading movement tremendously by helping connect us with an outstanding candidate for any of these positions. Finding the right people to join our team will be the single biggest factor in our success. Director-level positions offer a $2,500 referral bonus.

We need your help!

We frequently ask for your support — and that’s because we need it to make seasteading a reality.

The Thiel Foundation will double the first $500,000 of 2011 donations from the seasteading community, earning The Seasteading Institute a total of $1,000,000. This gives us an opportunity to broaden our donor base, strengthening the financial foundation of the seasteading movement. We’ve received over $10,000 in gifts this year already (thank you!), but that leaves us a very long way to go!

PS: Check out the cover story on Peter Thiel in Forbes magazine, also available online: “Life After Facebook.” The article discusses Peter’s work “bankrolling ideas he thinks will save the world” — including seasteading!

The technology to foster the fluid mechanics of voluntary societies is at hand. The Seasteading Institute is a nonprofit think-tank working to provide a machinery of freedom to choose new societies on the blue frontier. The most successful floating cities can then inspire change around the world.